French Open: Garbine Muguruza beats Svetlana Kuznetsova in Paris

Garbine Muguruza moved into a third successive French Open quarter-final with a straight sets victory over former champion Svetlana Kuznetsova.

The 22-year-old Venezuelan-born Spaniard was in terrific form to see off the 2009 champion at Roland Garros and set-up a last-eight meeting with American Shelby Rogers who beat Irina-Camelia Begu from Romania.

Muguruza, seeded fourth and last year's Wimbledon finalist, showed her full array of groundstrokes in an entertaining encounter with her Russian opponent but she proved just too strong and recorded a third successive straight sets win.

Having dropped her first set in Paris in her first round meeting with Anna Schmiedlova, Muguruza has now won eight successive sets and lost just 12 games in advancing to the quarter-final for a third successive year and she is in the sort of form that will see her move into a first ever French Open semi-final.

Maria Sharapova and Lucie Safarova are the players to have previously ended her Paris ambitions but she will start at a strong favourite to progress to the semi-finals in Paris.

Next up for Muguruza will be unseeded Rogers, was produced a fine performance to see off Romania Begu and move into the last eight of a Grand Slam for the first time in her career.

World No108 Rodgers added a third seed to her list of successes and with Petra Kvitova (seeded tenth) and Karolina Pliskova (seeded 17th) already beaten it was the turn of 25th seed Begu to feel the force of the unheralded American from South Carolina.

The 23-year-old's previous best in a major was the third round in last year's US Open but she was too strong for Begu when it mattered and a crucial break in the second set proved decisive as she wrapped up a 6-3 6-4 success.

The two remaining women's fourth-round matches in the bottom half of the draw will have to be completed on Monday - weather permitting - after rain brought an early end to play.

Second seed Agnieszka Radwanska was closing in on victory over Tsvetana Pironkova at 6-2 3-0 while, in the battle of the former finalists, Simona Halep leads Sam Stosur 5-3.

There were two shocks in the third round of the women's doubles, with defeat for Serena and Venus Williams and top seeds Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza.

Hingis and Mirza were going for the calendar Grand Slam after winning Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open but lost 6-3 6-2 to Czech pair Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova.